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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "Half of a Yellow Sun"

A Biafran family loses almost everything in the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War.

(from The Best American Nonrequired Reading, 2004)

Told from the perspective of a young woman whose well-to-do family is uprooted by the war and whose lover is a soldier, this story’s plot line isn’t a roller coaster. It’s a descending line. Things keep getting worse, and you keep reading because you hope against common sense that this will end well. Most compelling are the daily struggles of the “extras” in the war and their non-historical plights. They long for fresh food and salt and medicine, for stability.

Some sections of the story begin with Igbo sayings. They don’t seem to parallel the action of the story, but they do help transport the reader to another way of thinking. Excellent story.